When the moon is in the Seventh House And Jupiter aligns with Mars 5th Dimension

INTO the 60’s now for sure…and things were coming that would change my (and a lot of other people’s as well) world forever…

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We were still in the middle of an active cold war but Europe was no longer the only place that were pushing the violence mode:

Attacks from Muslim extremist aren’t new—But the reason was different. Algeria was under French colonization and trying to seek their independence, a subject the French didn’t care to consider and the Algerian activists answered by setting off bombs in the French capital and randomly killing Paris policemen. The Police answered with a crackdown of Algerian residents and searches of their areas for bombs resulting in death for several of the residents, this continued and when in October, 30,000 Algerians demonstrators defied the curfew and gathered along the Seine to protest, the police turned their guns on them. Officially 3 were listed as dead and 16 wounded, but the witness’ reports of multiple bodies floating in the river contradicted that.

In Africa the Congo (currently Zaire) had gained it’s independence from Belgium in 1960, and by ’61, there was a major Soviet involvement which split the government apart and resulted in the death of Dag Hammarskja, the second Secretary-General of the United Nation who along with 15 others were killed in a plane crash on their way to negotiate a cease fire. I can remember that it seemed to me that the world had stopped at this disaster and the death of the Secretary General which was practically all that was on the news for days. This would go on for years and eventually involve and Ameican and Belgium intervention among other things in the 1960’s.

Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars

And we had a new kid on the block–President John F. Kennedy who got his first international hot spot with Laos—a country that outgoing president Eisenhower and his administration had set up to provide a barrier to Communist China and North Viet Nam. By the time Kennedy took office the country was shattered and in the midst of a conflict between 3 separate fractions (one supported by the US, one by the Russians and one neutral). He avoided invasion and brokered a cease fire which happened but proved to be an aid to the Communists…this would continue on through 1963.

While Kennedy was brokering a delay in the inevitable (though we didn’t know it at the time) he also got caught up closer home in a disaster called the Bay of Pigs. This mess involved the CIA and an invasion of the Communist, under Fidel Castro, Cuba by American trained Cubans refugees. I have heard much about this since it happened and I can remember it coming to us in bits and pieces at the time. It appears that despite the advise that Cuba wasn’t a real threat to the US, he rather took the CIA’s advise and assurances and the US government and the President himself were left in the lime-light of guilt and failure.

Kennedy did have something good to claim as his own that year when in March he signed an executive order creating the Peace Corp. I can remember the wonder that brought to many people and thousands volunteered. By September the Congress had signed on and there was funding.

Aquarius
Aquarius

’61 was the year we

lost Gary Cooper but gained West Side Story.

It was the year I entered High School–a boarding school, but I live close enough by to be able to catch a ride which I did and so was more exposed to the world than would have in the confines of a strict religious institution.

We were starting to realize that there was more than just the average kids that needed education. The Teacher of the Deaf Act was enacted to train teacher to be able to work with students who were deaf (now hearing impaired).

Harmony and understanding
Sympathy and trust abounding

In the town and the private school I was in there was little contact with blacks but this was soon to change.

This was the year that Motown started making its bones and signed such acts as the Elgins who would become the Temptations; Stevie Wonder and the Primettes whom we know as the Supremes. They released “Mr. Postman” this year by the Mavelettes and it would go on to hit the #1 spot on Billboard #1, their first #1.

It was the beginning of a long march to equality, which many of us didn’t realise that Negroes (what we said then) did not have. Organizations like Core, who sponsored Freedom Riders to protest segregation on public transportation. The riders by the way were met by many with violence and abuse.

No more falsehoods or derisions
Golden living dreams of visions

In 1961 the world reached a new milestone: a population of 3 million.

I can remember the whole country stopped to watch or listen to the blast off and short sub-orbital flight of Allen Shepherd, the first man in space—a feat that gave America a reason to celebrate and was shortly followed by President Kennedy begining the Apollo program for manned space flight.

But it was also the year that we shuddered in a what next posture as the Russian cut off the boarder crossings and started to build what for many was the ultimate symbol of Communism–the Berlin wall and I remember the ongoing reports of those that made it over, under and about the wall and the death or imprisonment of many who didn’t. And how our former enemies in German were now our fellow fighters of the great evil of the Communism.

Mystic crystal revelation
And the mind’s true liberation
Aquarius
Aquarius

Other notables in 1961:

Jane Fonda debuted on an NBC drama String of Pearls

China got it’s first atomic reactor

Poppin’ Fresh–the Pillsbury Dough Boy popped up

Bob Dylan opened for Johnny Lee Hooker, marking his first major performance…

Amnesty International a Human Rights organization was founded.

Rudolf Nureyev a Soviet Ballet star defected while in France

Hemingway committed suicide

Jimmy Hoffa became head of the Teamsters

And a trend stared with the hijacking of a plane to Cuba, which became a trend for which Kennedy signed a law making the practice a death penalty event.

And one of the hit songs was Rama Lama Ding Dong (nothing to do with Tibet)

Let the sunshine, let the sunshine in, the sunshine in
Let the sunshine, let the sunshine in, the sunshine in
Let the sunshine, let the sunshine in, the sunshine in

Oh and least we forget in 1961:

President Kennedy provided assistance to South Viet Nam against those Communists including insurgents and Viet Cong– we mentioned in our last blog on 1960– in the form of equipment and 3,000 Military ADVISERS and support personnel.

American Military Helicopters and Personnel to maintain and operate them also arrived in South Viet Nam.

And Green Berets also had feet on the ground to train Viet troops

And so the plot thickens….though we weren’t aware of all this yet…or most of us weren’t.